xii FOREWORDS TO NEW EDITION 



above mother earth, yet spreading freely over it, and, 

 when they fall over the brows of rocks, draping them 

 with lovely colour ; minute plants that scarcely exceed 

 the mosses in size, and quite surpass them in the way 

 in which they mantle the earth with fresh green carpets 

 in the midst of winter; and "succulent" plants in 

 endless variety, though smaller than the mosses of our 

 bogs : in a word, alpine vegetation embraces nearly 

 every type of the plant-life of northern and temperate 

 climes. 



ALPINE GARDENING. 



As to the merits of " alpine" and like kinds of 

 gardening, as compared with those more in vogue, 

 there can be little doubt in the minds of all who 

 give the subject any thought. Stupidity itself 

 could hardly delight in anything uglier than the 

 daubs of colour that, every summer, flare in the 

 neighbourhood of most country-houses in western 

 Europe. Visit many of our large country gardens, 

 and probably the first thing we shall hear about will 

 be the scores of thousands of plants " bedded out " 

 every year, though no system ever devised has had 

 such a bad effect on our gardens. 



Amateurs who cultivate numerous hot -house 

 plants, and who generally have not a dozen of the 

 equally beautiful flowers of northern and temperate 

 regions in their gardens, might grow an abundance of 

 them at a tithe of the expense required to fill a glass- 

 house with costly Mexican or Indian Orchids. Our 

 botanical and great public gardens, in which alpine 



